MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico on Saturday started imposing a 50% tariff on white corn imports, a transfer the president says appears to spice up nationwide manufacturing and stop imports of genetically modified corn.

The measure, printed late Friday within the Mexican authorities’s official gazette, will likely be in pressure till the top of the yr and happens amid a commerce dispute between Mexico and its North American commerce companions, Canada and the United States, over genetically modified corn.

White corn was among the many primary meals that had been exempted from tariffs earlier this yr in an try by the Mexican authorities to manage inflation. But in response to the decree, the choice “has not generated a significant impact on the decrease in prices in the national market, so it’s considered appropriate to eliminate it.”

At 5.84% in May, the Mexican authorities considers inflation kind of underneath management.

Mexico imports some white corn - the type used for human consumption - primarily from the United States and South Africa. But because the tariff goes in opposition to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free commerce settlement, it may complicate the commerce dispute that the nation already has with the U.S. and Canada over GM corn.

Mexico desires to limit GM white corn for human consumption and ultimately additionally veto GM yellow corn for animal feed. The U.S. and Canada say that will hurt commerce within the area. Mexico has been importing GM feed corn from the U.S. for years, shopping for about $3 billion price yearly.

Both the United States and Canada have mentioned that Mexico’s concern of the risks of genetically modified corn is “not grounded in science.”

Earlier this month, Canada mentioned it could be part of a commerce dispute panel that the United States requested over Mexico’s proposed limits on imports of genetically modified corn. The U.S. authorities requested that the dispute course of be formally opened June 2, after talks with the Mexican authorities did not yield outcomes.

A panel of consultants would have about six months to check the criticism and launch its findings. Trade sanctions may observe if Mexico was discovered to have violated the U.S.-Mexico Canada free commerce settlement.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned he was not afraid of controversy and has insisted that solely home white corn ought to be used for human consumption.

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